TY - JOUR A1 - Cywinski, Piotr J. A1 - Hammann, Tommy A1 - Huehn, Dominik A1 - Parak, Wolfgang J. A1 - Hildebrandt, Niko A1 - Löhmannsröben, Hans-Gerd T1 - Europium-quantum dot nanobioconjugates as luminescent probes for time-gated biosensing JF - Journal of biomedical optics N2 - Nanobioconjugates have been synthesized using cadmium selenide quantum dots (QDs), europium complexes (EuCs), and biotin. In those conjugates, long-lived photoluminescence (PL) is provided by the europium complexes, which efficiently transfer energy via Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) to the QDs in close spatial proximity. As a result, the conjugates have a PL emission spectrum characteristic for QDs combined with the long PL decay time characteristic for EuCs. The nanobioconjugates synthesis strategy and photo-physical properties are described as well as their performance in a time-resolved streptavidin-biotin PL assay. In order to prepare the QD-EuC-biotin conjugates, first an amphiphilic polymer has been functionalized with the EuC and biotin. Then, the polymer has been brought onto the surface of the QDs (either QD655 or QD705) to provide functionality and to make the QDs water dispersible. Due to a short distance between EuC and QD, an efficient FRET can be observed. Additionally, the QD-EuC-biotin conjugates' functionality has been demonstrated in a PL assay yielding good signal discrimination, both from autofluorescence and directly excited QDs. These newly designed QD-EuC-biotin conjugates expand the class of highly sensitive tools for bioanalytical optical detection methods for diagnostic and imaging applications. (C) 2014 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) KW - quantum dots KW - europium complex KW - amphiphilic polymer assembly KW - nanobioconjugate KW - biosensor KW - time-resolved fluorescence Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JBO.19.10.101506 SN - 1083-3668 SN - 1560-2281 VL - 19 IS - 10 PB - SPIE CY - Bellingham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Morgner, Frank A1 - Stufler, Stefan A1 - Geissler, Daniel A1 - Medintz, Igor L. A1 - Algar, W. Russ A1 - Susumu, Kimihiro A1 - Stewart, Michael H. A1 - Blanco-Canosa, Juan B. A1 - Dawson, Philip E. A1 - Hildebrandt, Niko T1 - Terbium to quantum dot FRET Bioconjugates for clinical diagnostics influence of human plasma on optical and assembly properties JF - Sensors N2 - Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from luminescent terbium complexes (LTC) as donors to semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) as acceptors allows extraordinary large FRET efficiencies due to the long Forster distances afforded. Moreover, time-gated detection permits an efficient suppression of autofluorescent background leading to sub-picomolar detection limits even within multiplexed detection formats. These characteristics make FRET-systems with LTC and QDs excellent candidates for clinical diagnostics. So far, such proofs of principle for highly sensitive multiplexed biosensing have only been performed under optimized buffer conditions and interactions between real-life clinical media such as human serum or plasma and LTC-QD-FRET-systems have not yet been taken into account. Here we present an extensive spectroscopic analysis of absorption, excitation and emission spectra along with the luminescence decay times of both the single components as well as the assembled FRET-systems in TRIS-buffer, TRIS-buffer with 2% bovine serum albumin, and fresh human plasma. Moreover, we evaluated homogeneous LTC-QD FRET assays in QD conjugates assembled with either the well-known, specific biotin-streptavidin biological interaction or, alternatively, the metal-affinity coordination of histidine to zinc. In the case of conjugates assembled with biotin-streptavidin no significant interference with the optical and binding properties occurs whereas the histidine-zinc system appears to be affected by human plasma. KW - FRET KW - quantum dots KW - terbium KW - luminescence lifetime KW - blood KW - plasma KW - clinical diagnostics KW - biotin KW - streptavidin KW - histidin KW - immunoassay Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/s111009667 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 11 IS - 10 SP - 9667 EP - 9684 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER -